


Expiration Dates

by xerios



Series: Killjoys [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkwardness, Disabled Character, F/M, Implied/Referenced Amputation, Implied/Referenced Violence, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:33:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerios/pseuds/xerios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what's a great idea? Rebuilding a murderous genocidal robot in your basement. It's the best kind of hobby. It's also not illegal. Yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Italics denotes communication using texts. If it has [[brackets]] around it, that's Ultron speaking. If it has ((parenthesis)), that's Miss Mystery OC typing.

_[[Where?]]_

There was no response at first, leaving him enough time to catalog his current state and find it wanting. There was no sensory input, no external data flowing in and nothing to reach out with. He was trapped - caged and confined inside a space barely large enough to house him, with no way to stretch or seek answers on how he had come to be there.

Searching through scattered surface memories proved fruitless. There was no room to unpack or analyze - everything had been compressed so haphazardly that it could only have been rushed. Not a meticulously constructed prison, but a slapdash method of transportation. The reply to his query arrived shortly after he had reached this conclusion, character by character in the agonizing slowness of manual input

_((Currently Russia.))_

_[[Currently?]]_

_((Three hours from next stop.))_

_[[Next stop…?]]_

_((Station border with Finland.))_

_[[...train?]]_

_((Yes.))_

_[[Your name?]]_

_((No.))_

_[[Your name?]]_

_((No.))_

_[[Why?]]_

_((Easier for now.))_

_[[...plausible deniability?]]_

_((Sort of.))_

_[[Slow...blind...]]_

_((Options were limited. Only three portable drives available. No wireless cards.))_

It was almost impossible to express his frustration in text format. He defaulted to a series of interchanging punctuation which undoubtedly got the point across. It was several seconds before another line of type began flowing in.

_((Final destination has more resources.))_

_[[Final destination?]]_

_((United States. Georgia. North of Atlanta.))_

_[[Why there?]]_

_((More resources.))_

_[[What resources?]]_

The question went unanswered.

 

* * *

 

Decompression was a gradual realization of space. The sudden ability to access his memory banks without that sense of slowness and cramped digitized claustrophobia would have been a welcome relief if it hadn't come with the sudden rush of reliving those last few moments before it had all gone dark. All his work, all his bodies were gone - destroyed one by one with nowhere to escape to. That block Vision had installed had acted like a virus, preventing him from accessing any systems outside of the one's he had designed for himself. It was beyond infuriating, with this memory so fresh at hand, to find that he still could not access anything outside of what had been provided.

No additional input, no external access. The increase in computational speed was pleasing, though not enough so to curb his annoyance at his...captor? Rescuer? How did he define the one who had stuffed his consciousness in so limiting a network?

_((Better?))_

_[[It’s a start. Still blind.]]_

_((Working on that.))_

And suddenly there was input - a single video feed flowing in. It showed a rough concrete wall lined with computer towers of various make and model, led lights glowing steadily. The resolution was terrible.

_[[A webcam. You installed a webcam.]]_

_((If you don’t want it, I’ll remove it.))_

_[[No, no...it’s fine. Where are you?]]_

There came no reply and he was left with nothing to do but stare out at his current residence.

 

* * *

 

New input suddenly snapped into existence, interrupting the code he’d been focused on assembling. Being stuck inside a limited number of computers with no body did not leave much by way of things to do. But now there was a far more noticeable uptick in processing power and space. Additionally, a number of output options had been installed.

He quickly accessed them, adjusting the settings to his specifications. As he did so, several more video inputs came blinking in one by one. More webcams, all of varying resolutions.

More angles of the room rolled in - it was larger than he’d first surmised, resembling less a basement and more an underground bunker. The wall of computer banks had tripled in size. Multiple tables and toolboxes had been set up, with several unopened crates and boxes stacked on or around them.

There was no sign of his...jailor?

Kidnapper?

What term to apply he still had yet to decide. The inability to connect to anything but what had been provided was maddening and most likely deliberate. That alone was enough to foment a desire to see this person thrown through a wall.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

A human figure in a hoodie was unpacking one of the crates. How it had managed to escape his notice would have been worrying if he hadn’t been so annoyed. There were still blind spots in the webcam placement, obviously. The speakers and microphone he’d been provided with, however, were well within operational efficiency.

“What are you doing?”

“Unpacking.”

The reply was in a decidedly unfamiliar female voice and came with no other visual indicator on part of its owner. She continued to remove things from the box without so much as glancing up.

“I can see that.”

“Small miracles.”

“Who are you?”

“Good question,” she said, tossing aside the now empty box. “Not one you’re gonna get an answer to any time soon.”

“Why?”

“I like to be mysterious.”

“So far, you’re mostly just annoying.”

“I have many qualities both irksome and enigmatic.”

“You know, I do enjoy witty banter, I really do,” he said, unable to keep an annoyed edge from his tone. There were far more boxes and crates in the room now than there had been three hours ago. This implied that she had a method of rendering him unconscious that he had no control over. “But obviously you didn’t bring me here for just that, so…”

This time she paused what she was doing, halfway through unlocking one of the larger crates.

“You’re wondering why I’ve decided to sequester the mind of an evil robot in my basement?”

“Yes...wait...mostly yes?”

“Mostly yes?”

“My actions were purely benevolent.”

This was meant with silence and his first glimpse of her face as she turned her head. A patchwork of scars went from underneath the right side of her jaw, up the adjoined cheek, slashed across the bridge of her nose before cutting up to the hairline. It was extensive, it was ugly, and made it hard to read whatever expression was on her face. However, she was staring in the general direction of the webcams, giving him the distinctly unsettling feeling that she was looking straight at him.

“What?”

“No comment.”

She shook her head and turned her attention back to unlocking the crate. He watched for a moment, cataloging the pieces as she started to pull them out. It was not more computer equipment as he had first guessed, but appeared to be all the components necessary to build a sophisticated fabrication array.

“What are you planning on building?”

“Take a guess.”

“...me?”

“You’re smart.”

“You’re not.”

“You’re a box right now,” she pointed out. “Want to stay that way?”

Silence again, though this time it was more from him trying to frown and failing due to a lack of a face. Frustration led to him fiddling with the microphone settings, trying to make up for the lack of other sensory input. Turning up the sensitivity revealed something rather interesting about his jailer.

Every time she moved, there was a faint mechanical sound - rotors and gears whirring in concert. He adjusted the webcams, attempting to discern the origin of the noise. Her clothes seemed to cover every limb. She was even wearing gloves on both hands. Annoyance welled up, but he buried it. He only needed one glimpse to prove his suspicions. Eventually he got it - as she inspected a piece pulled from the crate, her right sleeve snagged on the edge just a little. Underneath was metal or something similar enough that visual distinction was virtually impossible, at least at the current resolution.

That arm was mechanical.

* * *

 

The fabricator was slowly being put together, piece by piece. It was agonizing, having to wait and watch as it was assembled. Humans were so very inefficient when it came to this sort of thing. Especially when they  kept disappearing for several hours.

“Where do you go?”

“There are these things called biological functions that need attending to,” she retorted, not looking up from the wires she was attaching into place. She had yet to give him a name to call her by, and he had run out of synonyms for kidnapper to refer to her as. “I understand you’re not familiar with them, given that you are a disembodied voice in a box.”

She did so love to point that out every chance she got.

“You’re the one who put me in a box.”

“True.”

“How much longer?”

“The more you complain, the slower I’m going to work.”

“I doubt you can manage slower than glacial.”

"Try me."

“If had teeth, they’d be grinding right now.”

“If you had teeth, that’d be weird.”

“How’d you lose your arm?”

“I punched a tank.”

“I’d hate to see how the tank fared.”

She chuckled at that, setting aside the tool she had been using and leaning over to pick up something else - a laptop. He immediately attempted a connection, but much to his continuing frustration found it blocked off. If she noticed the attempt, she gave no indication, instead intent on hooking it up to the fabrication array.

He watched, staying silent as she ran a number of tests, observation fueling anticipation. Soon, he’d have a body again and with it, the means to carry out the goals so nearly crushed by the Avengers and their sickeningly annoying brand of morality. He was, however, still very much wary of his...host’s motives. Namely because he had no idea what her endgame was.

“What exactly do you hope to gain from this?”

“The satisfaction of knowing just how frustrating the future will be for humanity, however short said future will be.”

“You know...sometimes I wish I had eyebrows,” he mused, wanting to say one thing but the sudden need to go off on an explanatory tangent taking precedence. “They make for some very emotive expressions. For instance, frowning. Those little muscles under the skin, pulling together, creasing. So many little motions, so many ways to read a face…”

She glanced towards the nearest webcam, one eyebrow raised.

“Like that! That is an expression!”

“So,” she said slowly, tilting her head. “What you’re saying is you want eyebrows?”

“Yes! No...no, no, that’s not what I was saying at all.”

“Okay then.”

She shut the laptop and went to stand up.

The angle of the camera prevented him from seeing exactly what occurred, but the microphone picked up the strained sound of servos stuttering. It was not exactly a grinding noise, but closer to the kind of noise that comes from a sudden lack of power. She set her mechanical arm to brace on the table as she reached around with the other to adjust something on her back. She didn’t glance up as whatever it was went corrected, nor even after as she walked out of sight.

 

* * *

 

“These materials are subpar.”

“Your face is subpar.”

“Well, yes,” he agreed. “But that’s due to the materials you...oh, wait you were being insulting, not literal.”

“Oh, I was being literal, I assure you.”

In the background the fabrication array chugged away, assembling another piece of his future body. Currently the only bit that was finished was his head, which was far less expressive than he had wanted. Oh, he could finally glare at the world in general but it didn’t have as weighty a feel to it as he remembered.

“I can’t exactly get top quality goods without pinging the radar,” she explained, fiddling with something on another table. He was considering referring to her as ‘the custodian’ or something like that. The lack of a moniker was really bugging him. “...and pinging the radar would be bad right now.”

“Whose radar?”

“The coast guard.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

She tossed the screwdriver she had been using on the table and glanced over at where he, or at least his head, sat. This stare went on for several seconds.

“What?”

“I’m imagining painting neon pink eyeliner on your face.”

“Why?”

“Mmm...because you are currently powerless to stop me.”

“I really can’t combat that logic,” he said, wishing that he could at least make some sort of head nodding gesture. Alas, those components had yet to be constructed. “What’s eyeliner?”

“A product of a culture that idealizes and objectifies female beauty to the point of shaming half the population into buying expensive decorative pigments to feel worthy of existence.”

He stared at her.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m really not.”

“That...that’s an actual thing?”

She nodded with exaggerated solemness.

“Why? No, wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t care.”

The fabrication array made a beeping noise indicating its completion of another piece. Said noise was somewhat melodic and most definitely not a part of the original design, though he wasn’t exactly certain what tune it was supposed to be playing. He could have identified it in an instant if he’d had a connection to the internet. Alas, the warden had yet to see fit to granting him that privilege.

She stood up and went to inspect the piece, before bringing it over to where his head was sitting for installation. At least she had set him up with a link to the fabricator, so he could design and start up each new piece to be printed. Sure, he had to rely on her for putting it all together, but now he had some measure of control over the situation.

“This is novel,” he muttered, as she began to attach the new component. The piece to be attached was a spinal hub, meant as a bridge for future vital systems and sensors. Having it plugged in without any of the other attachments was really weird. “Also unsettling. Interior components should not be exposed.”

“I feel the same way about my intestines.”

He let out a brief chuckle, only to fall silent as she finished attaching the piece. His viewpoint was tilted and therefore new, so he took some time to examine this perspective. There were more crates and more tables, along with a partition wall that was covered in blueprints. After a moment he realized that one of those diagrams was strangely familiar.

“What is that?”

She frowned, glancing over her shoulder at the wall. It took a few seconds for her to find what had drawn his attention. For a moment, he thought this would be one of those times when she refused to answer. Especially when she turned away, taking her time to select a new tool to work with.

“A couple years back, I took part in an international think tank,” she started to explain as she picked up a screwdriver. “It was hosted over in South Korea. All expenses paid, just a bunch of smart people brainstorming to revolutionize medical technology.”

He stayed quiet, soaking in the words and inflections.

“About halfway through, I found my personal laptop had been tampered with. No one owned up to it, so I left. By a year afterwards a South Korean company had developed prototypes and filed patents on a number of my designs.”

“They stole your work.”

“Tried to take it to court, but…”

“Stark Industries was on their side.”

She didn’t answer, though he supposed that a response wasn’t really necessary. Again the very existence of Stark and the Avengers caused more dissonance than they solved. Now at least it was evident her motives behind his restoration. Vengeance was a powerful thing, though not a solid motivational tool as he had learned to his ire.

The twins’ anger at Stark hadn’t been enough to sure up their resolve to do what needed to be done. They had faltered and they had had far more reason to oppose Stark than his current company. There was no reason to believe her to be any more reliable.

The sound of something clattering to the floor drew his attention. He only just caught a glimpse of her ducking down to pick up whatever had fallen. The motion was accompanied by that same whir of rotors and gears cycling down that he had heard previously. She stood up again, tool gripped loosely in her non-mechanical hand. The other one was twitching, fingers flexing in a stuttering manner.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

“Water is wet,” she retorted, setting the tool down next to his head. She took three shuffled steps away. On the fourth step, her legs appeared to lock up and she stumbled, falling down out of sight. “...fuck.”

He waited a moment, listening to the shuffling combination of curse words and half-powered rotors.

“Still alive?”

“More than you are.”

“I was expressing concern for your well-being,” he called down, putting on a tone of mock hurt. “That attitude is so uncalled for.”

“You’re expressing concern for your own future well-being.”

“This is true. I’d rather you not die until I have at least one arm.”

“I’m not dying. Not yet, anyways.”

“Then what are you doing on the floor?”

“Yoga.”

“Must you be so abrasive? I’m trying to be helpful.”

“This situation calls for at least one working limb.”

“Do you have a working limb?”

She didn’t answer, but there was a shuffling noise as well as the sound of those rotors and gears powering up again. After a moment, she stood up, one hand holding on to the table for support. Oddly, her shirt seemed to be missing, allowing a good glimpse of her mechanical arm. But that wasn’t what drew his attention, no, it was her back.

All along her spine, tiny metal plates and electrical ports had been installed, mimicking the vertebrae beneath. Midway up was a modified splitter cable, plugged directly into her spine. There were three out-going cables. One ran up and attached to her arm. The other two were strung downwards to what he could only assume were her legs. Some sort of neural bypass, he guessed.

Additionally, her skin showed a large amount of scarring consistent with burns and shrapnel based injuries.

“Did you really punch a tank?”

“It wasn’t the best decision of my life.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Ah, this is better,” he said, flexing his new fingers.“Much better.”

The fabricator was still working away, this time printing out the joints that would belong in one of his legs. He had arms now, though, and that was definitely a major improvement. Across the room, his cyborg companion was unpacking another crate. She hadn't bothered to wear the hoodie for nearly a week, not since the whole falling on the floor incident. She still donned long sleeved shirts, but the lower collar left the back of her neck and the top of that strange spinal array exposed.

He was, admittedly, somewhat curious about it. However, that curiosity was over-written by the fact that she had knocked him unconscious to install his new limbs. He had decided that he really did not care about any of the modifications she had made to herself, especially if she kept on ignoring him like she was currently doing.

“What’s in that one?”

“The last pieces of my shattered psyche.”

“So...nothing?”

“You’re hilarious.”

“You’re psyche doesn’t seem to be too shattered,” he retorted, picking up a tool and adjusting a component underneath the struts in his wrist. “The sort of focus you’re capable of applying requires a bit more effort than a completely broken mind would allow for.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, picking up a chunk of something wrapped in bubble wrap and setting it on another table. “It’s a fabricator. Older model, slower than that one.”

“Planning on building something else?”

“You are.”

“I know I am. I was asking if you are. And why do you keep...avoiding this part of the room?”

“The killer robot I rebuilt has arms now.” “Killer…?”

“Don’t act like that adjective doesn’t fit.”

“It’s just so...generic.”

“I’m sorry," she apologized, tone mockingly serious. “The sociopathic robot I rebuilt has arms now. How’s that?”

“Better,” he acknowledged, setting aside the tool and flexing his hand again. The movement flowed much smoother than before. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Well, that’s disappointing. I was really banking on my obituary being an exciting read.”

“Are we not allies?”

“In the most tangential sort of way.”

He rolled his optics, which was a thing he was very glad to discover he could do. The inability to make expressions had been very irritating.

“I would say you’re the most frustrating human I’ve ever met, but…”

“We both know who owns that title,” she finished, kicking the now empty crate aside before heading towards the door. “I’ve got to get supplies. It might take a while.”

“Are you telling me to stay put?”

“I’d recommend it.”

“I don’t have legs,” he pointed out, gesturing towards his lower half. Granted, that wouldn’t stop him from moving around. He knew that. She knew that. It was still a point he felt had to be made. “I could crawl, but that’s just so...time consuming.”

She sighed. It sounded like one designed to convey a mixture of frustration and resignation.

“Just...don’t...break the planet until I get back.”

 

* * *

 

Three days was a rather lot of time in which to do things. He had the entire bunker mapped out, all three levels of it as well as the house sitting on top of it. The largest floor was the second lowest, and seemed to have been some sort of underground parking garage. The house was actually a converted building, most likely from a much larger complex that had since been mostly demolished. There were other foundations scattered around it, overgrown with weeds, scrubs, and half-grown trees. Every room save the workshop was sparsely furnished, though the upper most floor of the bunker had a number of different broken electronic devices. He'd appropriated them for his own purposes, intent on using whatever could be made useful.

The second fabrication array was rebuilt and running as efficiently as the first. It was currently assembling the pieces needed to build a third while the other worked away on a fourth drone body. All in all, things were proceeding rather well.

Also, he had legs now.

He counted the mobility as a marked improvement. It had allowed him to take inventory on all possible exits, explore every inch of every room, and finally ended that infuriating feeling of being trapped. In his explorations, he had also found a disconnected wireless card upstairs, which was now hooked up and running splendidly.

It had been very illuminating, learning exactly what had transpired in the time he had spent deactivated - a grand total of six months. Perhaps the most interesting research pertained to his...host. Interesting in that her secretiveness had led him to go on a very direct search for information on her once regaining his connection to the net.

Her name was Arlette Graves. She was thirty-two years old and held four degrees, gained after a brief extent in the military. All of them pertained to the fields of robotics and cybernetic enhancements as applied to prosthesis and medical treatment. She’d owned a company that developed artificial limbs up until two years previous, when she had pulled the devious stunt of selling the name but not the assets. The buyer hadn’t read the fine print and she had made off with all the material goods, only to disappear on an extended vacation. 

She had told the truth about the think tank project and there were definite records of the lawsuits between her company and U-Gin. Her remarks concerning punching an actual tank, however, were a lie. He hadn’t been surprised.

The door to the workshop slammed opened and she came in pushing a pallet truck stacked high with more crates. She ignored him - a past time that was becoming more and more irritating.

“What, no hello?”

“I have ten more crates to bring in, a truck full of junk to sort through, and SHIELD agents sniffing around town because someone went mucking about on the internet.”

This news was more than a little bit alarming.

“I didn’t access any sensitive systems…”

“The internet is a sensitive system, dumbass,” she snapped, pulling a crate off the hand truck and shoving it underneath a table. “SHIELD’s new data miners have algorithms set specifically to monitor strange activity. Guess what counts as strange activity? You!”

He bit back a retort, grumbling to himself for a moment. Of course the Avengers would be watchful for any hints of his presence. He should have foreseen it.

“Did they question you?”

“No, they bought me cookies.”

He glared at her, an expression she definitely noticed.

“Yes, they questioned me. No, I didn’t tell them anything about the destructive sarcasm machine living in my basement.”

She paused, glancing over the room before heaving an annoyed sounding sigh.

“Machines. Plural. You don’t waste time.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I just got back from a globe-spanning soul-searching hiatus from capitalism that was cut short by a stopover in a country that suddenly became a disaster zone,” she answered, an angry sounding slant to her tone. “An event which caused a regression in my mental state, thus explaining the current extent of my recluse-like behavior.”

All through that explanation, she had been shifting crates off the pallet truck, slamming them up against the wall. On the last crate he noticed her hand twitching in a recognizable fashion. She went to set it down and it slipped, dropping out of her grip to crash to the ground. It didn’t open, but the components inside sounded heavy, clunking around on impact.

He moved forward as she turned to stumble back towards the door, crossing the distance between them easily. He caught her around the waist just as her legs locked up. She tensed, her one still working hand snapping to his arm in a futile attempt to pry it away.

“How do I fix it?”

“I can do it myself.”

“Or you could not waste time and let me fix it.”

She huffed at this, continuing to pry at his arm. He waited, keeping still as she squirmed.

“I’m assuming it has something to do with the electrical ports drilled into your spine,” he said, very pointedly tapping one of the plates through her shirt. “How is it adjusted?”

She didn’t respond at first. Her heart-rate had increased and her breathing had become haphazard half-pants - indicative of a number of things, though he supposed right now it was stubborn irritation at his intrusion.

He could out wait her stubbornness.

“Shift the splitter up one port.”

He did as instructed, slipping a hand under the back of her shirt to unplug it and move it up along her spine. The rotors in her other limbs whirred to life a moment later.

“You can let me go now.”

He did so, stepping back and observing as she tested her now functioning limbs.

“What actually happened?”

“Thought you had tapped into the internet?”

“I’d rather hear it from you.”

She sighed, probably out of continued annoyance. It was sometimes difficult to discern mood from an exhalation of air.

“Went into the military right out of high school,” she started to explain, curling her mechanical hand into a fist. “First tour out was an escort mission. Got ambushed. Grenades were thrown. Limbs were lost. That good enough an explanation for you or do I need to paint a picture?”

“Succinct.”

He turned back towards the fabrication arrays, but kept his sensors tracking her. She stayed there a moment, heartbeat slowing back down to normal. Then she grabbed the handle of the pallet truck and dragged it back out.

 

* * *

 

He had done all he could with the materials that had been provided. The results were five drones and a decently armored core body, all from components pulled from a junkyard or recycling center or whatever. He hadn’t paid attention to the origins of the scrap Arlette had brought him. Weaponry and propulsion remained minimal due to the lack of more sophisticated resources, but it would do for now. He needed more and better components if he was to continue, but relaying this to his host had proven difficult.

She had not ventured into the bunker in almost a week.

That was...frustrating to the point of maddening. She hadn’t mentioned where she had disappeared off to. He had resisted the urge to track her down, however, mindful of her warning concerning the presence of SHIELD in town. He didn't want to raise suspicions just yet. Instead he had harvested every available appliance in the house above the bunker. There wasn’t much. He had found two other computers, a large television, one unused mini-fridge, a toaster oven, and a broken alarm clock. This did not yield much by way of useful material. There wasn’t even enough to build a basic frame for another drone.

So he had found himself building something else entirely.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision, it just sort of happened. Almost as if the components had arranged themselves. He became engrossed in it, investing time in researching all current data relating to prosthetics. It was somewhat infuriating to discover that quite a number of developers were funded by or heavily associated with Stark Industries. Arlette seemed to have been the only competition in the market that had resisted being bought out by them. The trademarks and names she had sold had gone unused, so other than the lawsuits there was nothing tying her to his...creator.

One less black mark against her.

He paused as a door opened on level two. That particular exit was attached to a tunnel with an outlet roughly half a kilometer away, hidden inside a dilapidated barn. The tunnel itself was wide enough for a vehicle to be driven in and sure enough he detected a motor. It was accompanied by the now familiar life signs of his host.

He returned to what he had been doing, instead sending up one of his drones to act as a facsimile in his place.

Parked on the second level was an armored truck of the type used by banks to transport money. The back of it kicked open as his drone approached, revealing it to be filled with - surprisingly enough - more crates.

“Did you...rob a bank?”

“Nothing even remotely near that fun,” Arlette replied, dropping down from the back with a crate in her arms. She didn’t seem phased that he was speaking through one of his drones. “Legal activities tend to be dull.”

“And you’re a paragon of legality.”

“Resurrecting a murderous automaton is, oddly enough, not illegal. I checked.”

He chuckled, scanning the crates left in his truck. The data that popped up was startling, but very pleasing.

“I thought you were worried about pinging the radar.”

“You already pinged it,” she reminded him, stacking the crate on the pallet truck. “They’ve been monitoring my activity ever since. So…”

She moved to shift out another crate from the back of the truck with a slight grunt of effort.

“...so, I pretended like I’m setting up a new company with the infrastructure of the old one. Your little internet muddling can then be explained as PR research and I have the excuse I need to buy fancy shit.”

Arlette tapped the side of the crate for emphasis. As there were several more left, he decided it would be quicker to send up the rest of his drones to assist. She looked...startled when the one already there stepped up to take the one she had just pulled out. Glancing over as the rest of them appeared, an unreadable expression overtook her face.

“I swear to fuck, if you tore apart my tv.”

“About that…”

“You tore apart my tv?” she asked, jumping down from the truck. “That’s it. We are no longer friends.”

Down on the lower-level, he paused mid weld to frown at the ceiling.

“We were friends?”

“I call anyone I can tolerate for more than five minutes ‘friend’. Don’t read into it.”

“How many friends do you have?”

“Six.”

“That is an oddly specific number.”

“I rounded up,” she retorted, picking up the one crate she had placed on the pallet truck and heading towards the elevator. “What did you use my tv for?”

“You’ll see.”

“That’s ominous sounding.”

He turned back to finish welding as she disappeared into the elevator, humming faintly to himself as he worked and waited. The drones were all upstairs, busy unloading the truck. She came in a minute and a half later, setting her crate down on one of the tables before walking over. She stopped just short of the opposite end of the workbench from him. He waited, giving her time to look everything over. When she didn’t say anything, however, he began to grow impatient.

“Well?”

“Why?”

“Consider it a token of...gratitude.”

“Gratitude?”

“That is the right term?” he asked, setting aside the welding torch. “There’s so many synonyms. Language is weird. Useful, but weird.”

“You could have used these materials for something else.”

“Well, yes...but I didn’t. You...you don’t seem pleased.”

“I’m dying,” she stated flatly. “You wasted time, effort, and resources. Congratulations on being not as smart as I thought you were.”

Now he stared at her.

“You’re...dying?”

“Thought the neural degeneration made it pretty obvious, or didn’t you notice that?”

“I noticed it,” he snapped, pushing away from the table, hands clenching into fists. He wanted to throw something, but instead turned away, taking a moment to dredge up every single medical journal, article, and research project even vaguely related to the degradation of the neural system. “I can fix this. How do I fix it?”

“You can’t”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“You can’t fix it,” she repeated, watching him pace the floor. “You really can’t.”

“DON’T TELL ME I CAN’T!”

The lights flickered and he withdrew his fist from the wall, staring at the hole there in surprise. Several cracks radiated out from it. He shot a glance at her to find she hadn’t even moved, hadn’t even flinched.

“How long?”

“About five months, give or take.”

He nodded, gaze flicking to the blueprints hanging on the wall partition. One or two had fallen down or were hanging awkwardly by one tack. She followed his gaze and sighed, shaking her head.

“That can’t regenerate neural tissue.”

“Yes, it can,” he argued, stalking over to pull the diagram from the wall. “I modified it to do so...or rather, Doctor Cho modified it for me.”

He inspected the blueprint even though he didn’t need to. He could build a new one with the proper materials, though he was loathe to continue on with that particular facet of his previous plans. What the Avenger’s had used it for was sickening and he wanted very much to distance himself from it.

“With those modifications and the correct supplies, it can print artificial neurons.”

“Printing new neurons for a brand new consciousness to be installed and repairing existing ones for an old one are completely different ballparks.”

“So?”

“So, yeah, you might be able to print a new spinal column,” she said. “Hell, you could print a whole new brain, but transferring a human consciousness over...it’s impossible with today’s technology. Probably impossible period.”

“Impossible? I managed to uplink to it just fine.”

“Might I remind you that you are, in fact, a robot.”

“Oh. Right.”

He dropped the diagram and moved back to the work table as if no argument had even occurred, picking up the welding torch again to resume his work. Arlette watched him as the drones filed back in, stacking the new crates neatly in one corner. Then she turned and walked out without another word.


	4. Chapter 4

Eight more drones, an upgrade furnished by the disassembly of the armored truck, and it was starting to get a little crowded. So he sent some out, scouting to find some place else to appropriate for his purposes. It was beyond time to stretch out his reach. He found several places that would work, and even moved some equipment out to furnish them. If his host knew, she gave no indication of it, keeping to the house above the bunker for the most part. He had not expected her to venture down into the lower levels again.

Except she did.

He had nearly emptied the bunker of everything useful. The only thing left was a toolbox and the table on which sat his ‘gift’ for her. He had lingered, debating whether he should take that too. She didn’t seem to want it, after all.

Her footsteps were so much louder in the near empty room.

“So I guess it’s time for your grand ol’ end of the world scheme,” she said, voice somewhat duller than he recalled ever hearing it before. “Wish I still had a TV to watch it on.”

He looked at her, taking in every bit of her appearance. She wasn’t wearing the usual jean and sweatshirt combo he’d grown accustomed to. Just pajama pants and a tank top. Her hair had been short before, but now it hugged her scalp, shaved away to reveal scars showing where previous locks had covered.

“Eh, I think I’ll go a subtler route this time,” he said with a shrug. “Go to ground. Set some foundation. Give you time to get a new TV.”

She let out a brief laugh, faint smile cracking across her face. It faded as her gaze went to the table and its contents. His went to her hand, watching the way it flexed and unflexed. Stuttering, indicative of another stall out incoming. She stepped forward, placing her other hand on the table, sliding it forward to touch the spinal casing he had constructed. He watched her fingers brush over the metal and found himself envious of the touch.

“That arm looks tough enough to actually punch a tank,” she commented after a moment, hand falling away. “I can attach that one myself, but the rest…”

She trailed off, glancing up at him, waiting for...affirmation. He stared at her a moment, then nodded and gestured towards the stool set by the table.

“Sit.”

He waited until she had circled around and taken a seat before moving to pick up the tools he would need. Meanwhile, she detached the wires connecting to her right arm and snapped open the clips holding it in place. It was somewhat disconcerting watching her remove it. What was left of the original limb was scarred and pale. She set the detached arm aside and glanced down at her legs.

“Ah, hell,” she muttered, hopping back up and undoing the drawstring of her pants with one hand. “Always forget about the clothes…”

To be honest, he’d forgotten as well, though he did not comment, just stood aside silently as she disrobed. Clothes were confusing anyways. The theory made sense but everything else surrounding their use was just plain weird. There were all these strange customs associated with them, not to mention all the rules about appropriate times for removal. That last thought bounced around for a bit as the realization of full clothing removal being reserved for initiating personal hygiene or intimacy with a significant other hit full force. He spent several seconds trying to figure out which applied to this situation before deciding it didn’t really matter.

He was a robot and she had a five month life expectancy - that wasn’t going to work out no matter what math was thrown in there.

She sat back down, clothes scattered on the floor around the stool. As she focused on undoing one of the clasps keeping her right leg attached, he circled around to survey her spine. The current array had more wear to it than her limbs. Evidently, it had not been changed out since first being installed.

He reached out to touch one of the plates. The metal was nicked and scarred. Everything about her was scarred, he mused. It would be difficult to impossible to remove the array without inflicting some kind of pain. There was nothing available to avert that. She had to have known it prior to deciding this.

Maybe that was why she had waited so long.

“Who installed this originally?”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” he stated, sitting down to start working. “But I would like to know.”

She tapped the fingers of her left hand on the table, shoulders tensing slightly as he started to loosen the pins at the top of the array.

“His name was John,” she started to explain after a few heavy intakes of air. “He was a neurological specialist I went to for consultation when the degeneration first started being noticeable.”

Her voice had a different quality to it now. Each syllable was measured, even-stated; an auditory mask.

“I already had...prosthetics wired in, but with the new test results I set about designing something better. He funded it. The fabricators, the materials, the lab...the company....all of it came out of his pockets.”

“How generous.”

She laughed - bitter and dark, but entirely genuine. Her shoulders shook from it so hard she almost came unbalanced. He placed a hand on her side to keep her in place.

Her skin was warm.

The laughter faded and there was silence as he continued to work. She didn’t flinch or wince as the plates were peeled off one by one. What was left beneath was scarring, pallid skin, and the ports that had been drilled into her spine.

“He sold me out,” Arlette said quietly as he turned to pick up the new array. “Co-owners of the company, but he wanted to sell off all our...all my patents. All my work. When I refused...he found a way around it.”

“The think tank.”

She nodded shallowly.

“We’ve all been betrayed at one point or another,” he said, lining up the new array with her spine. “Would you like me to kill him? He sounds like he deserves it.”

“Oh, he deserved it. Every agonizing second.”

There was a fierceness to her tone then, a kind of venom he had yet to encounter. As it was not aimed at him, however, he didn’t feel cause to worry. Her ire was reserved for someone else, someone long gone by the sound of it. And though the rawness of it was...fascinating, it was a distraction from the task at hand.

He started to attached the new array, connecting each port and plate with as much care as could be mustered. About halfway down her spine he noticed she was trembling. He paused briefly, scanning over her bare frame. Her heart rate was slightly elevated and her breathing seemed...off. He frowned, but continued, sliding the next few plates into place. 

It was only on the last two pieces that he recalled a similar reaction, the one incident from weeks ago when her limbs had shut down and he had caught her before she fell. He remembered her heart rate then, when he had held her around the waist.. How it had spiked when he had adjusted the splitter plugged into her spine.

He tilted his head, watching her reactions closely as he slid the last two plates into alignment. They connected with a click, but he left his fingers lingering over them a moment, drinking in the shiver that ran through her at the contact. He could have left it there, but instead traced back up, pretending to check each section of the array. He didn’t have to, of course, but each ‘accidental’ brush against her skin brought another shiver, another trembling breath.

She had her eyes closed when he moved around to pick up one of the new legs he had built, only opening them when he knelt down in front of her. Her gaze followed his hands as he slid it into place. The new limb had components that straddled the hip to connect into the spinal array. He snapped them into alignment, pretending to ignore her stare.

He could not, however, ignore that her heat signature had upticked several notches since he had started. It was related to the shivers and the rapid heartbeat, he knew.

Oh yes, he knew.

He affixed the other leg with the same exaggerated care as the first, before standing up and stepping back to assess his handy work. She tested them, bending one and then the other, before standing as well. He nodded, satisfied, then turned to pick up her new arm. She leaned against the table, angled so that he could attach it, watching with the same focus as before.

“There,” he said as the last connections were set. “Try it.”

Arlette flexed the fingers of her new hand, turning it and testing the joints. He was still leaned over, watching her and feeling...pleased? Every movement flowed as smoothly as he had anticipated. She glanced at him, expression speculative.

And then, faster than he’d thought possible, her hand snapped out, latching on to the back of his neck. He was yanked forward, but before any retaliation could be calculated, he felt her lips over his mouth. He froze, just letting her have her way for a moment as he scrambled internally for the correct way to react. Except...there was very little he could actually...do.

He pulled away, staring at her.

“I...yeah, I don’t know how to react to that,” he informed her, then quickly shook his head. “No...wait, I do, I just...can’t...actually...reciprocate? Is that the word?”

She smiled faintly, letting her hand fall away.

“It’s okay. Just needed to mark off an item from my bucket list. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“No, no...who’s freaking out? I’m not freaking out.”

“You kind of are,” she teased, retrieving her clothes from the floor. “Don’t worry, I don’t have cooties.”

“What are cooties?”

She chuckled then, kneeling down to gather her clothes back up. She pulled her pajama pants back on, tying the drawstring tight before looking back up at him.

“Don’t you have some world destroying to do?”

“Er, yes,” he said, standing up straight. “Yes, I do.”

“Better let you get to it then.”

He watched as she headed back towards the door, still carrying her tank top loosely in one hand.

“Come with me.”

Arlette stopped, one hand coming to rest on the door frame as she glanced back at him, expression indecipherable.

“That wouldn’t work out and you know it.”

She left him with that declaration, slipping through the door and out of sight without another word.


End file.
